They're Gonna Eat Me Alive
by INMH
Summary: Miriam Lass is alive- if you count this as living, at any rate. Warning: Kidnapping, Imprisonment, Amputation of a Body Part, Dub-Con, Semi-Explicit Sexual Content, Occasional Strong Language, Cannibalism, Gore, Murder, Assault, Dear God the warnings are longer than the actual summary.


They're Gonna Eat Me Alive  
**Rating:** R/M  
**Genre:** Dark/Horror/Drama/Angst/Hurt/Comfort/Crime/Suspens e/Romance (If you want to call it that).  
**Summary:** Miriam Lass is alive- if you count this as living, at any rate. Warning: Kidnapping, Imprisonment, Amputation of a Body Part, Dub-Con, Semi-Explicit Sexual Content, Occasional Strong Language, Cannibalism, Gore, Murder, Assault, Dear God the warnings are longer than the actual summary.  
**Author's Note:** I actually planned this before 'Help, I'm Alive', but that one ended up getting done sooner. I also originally planned to have it just be one huge one-shot (I loathe writing multi-chapter stories), but ended up splitting it into three parts.  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own Lecter. It belongs to NBC, Thomas Harris, and Bryan Fuller. The title comes from the song of the same name, by Metric.

[-]

Miriam awakes in darkness.

She's confused. When she sits up, hard concrete under her palms, her head spins harder and faster than it's ever spun before and she wobbles precariously. The fog begins to clear, and just before she's about to let herself fall back and give up, she remembers with horrible clarity what preceded her unconsciousness.

_Lecter_.

Miriam forces herself to her knees, squints in the darkness and tries to tell where she is. It's a room, which she supposes is better than the trunk of a car or a pine box about to be buried. She can see the dim outlines of objects some feet away, but can't tell what they are. The only thing within arm's reach is a hard wall at her back.

Lecter isn't here. She is alone. Miriam can't see anything moving, and she can't hear anyone either-

-_not that that made a damn bit of difference in his office, __**shit**__-_

She fumbles in her back pocket for her phone, and by some sort of miracle, it's still there.

Her hands are shaking with a vengeance as she hunts through her contacts to find Jack's number. She has to think carefully about each contact on the list, because too many of the wires in her brain are still disconnected and she can't afford to bypass the one she needs. Almost as distracting as the haze in her mind is the ache in her throat and neck, and one hand comes up to clumsily massage where Lecter had choked her.

Miriam finds Jack's number, having to focus even harder to make sure that she has the right one. She dials it, and bites her lip hard enough to hurt as it rings. What does she say? What can she say? Everything is jumbled and confused. It's less than two minutes later when the endless ringing cuts to an answering machine, and she has to resist the urge to bark every curse-word she knows.

"Jack, it's Miriam. I don't know where I am." Her voice is raspy. She crawls away from the wall, tentatively trying to get a better look around even as the floor and ceiling occasionally trade places. After a moment of nothing but frustrating darkness, she continues. "I was so _wrong. I was so wrong. _Please- Jack- please-"

The panic overcomes her, and her voice cracks.

"I don't want to die like this."

Miriam screams in fright, a pathetic and hopeless sound, as a hand grabs her and rips the phone away.

Pain erupts on the side of her head, and darkness returns.

[-]

When she next wakes up, she can't move.

Miriam's not on the floor anymore; it's definitely a bed beneath her back. Something solid and metal- handcuffs- are securing both her wrists and her ankles to the bedposts. Idly, the lack of noise makes her realize that the bedposts are wooden. Her head is pounding, and she's dizzy. There's something over her mouth- tape.

She is (effectively) gagged and tied to a bed.

In her experience, these scenarios do not end well.

[-]

Miriam is alone for some amount of time. There's no clock, and so an exact measure is impossible.

She drifts in and out of consciousness, though never falling into proper sleep again. Her head clears gradually as time goes on, but the fog never dissipates completely. Miriam knows she probably has a concussion, but she's no doctor and doesn't for the life of her remember how to assess how serious one is.

That she is still alive, however, says that she's meant to stay that way. For how long is uncertain.

[-]

When Dr. Lecter returns, Miriam is wide awake.

"Good morning, Agent Lass." He says, perfectly polite- far politer than someone who's holding an FBI agent in training hostage has a right to sound.

Miriam glares at him and tugs sharply, reflexively on the cuffs. She's angry, yes, but just beneath that is a crippling fear that she can't afford to let him see. If he does mean to kill her, she can't do anything about it like this- she thinks at least she can salvage her pride and die defiant.

Lecter walks over to the bed and sits down on the edge. Miriam thinks that she can hit him with her knee if she tries, but doesn't- she thinks, but isn't _certain_ that he means to kill her just yet. It may be best not to provoke him.

"Agent Lass," Lecter says, and his voice is obscenely calm, "I have no intention of killing you, else I would not have gone through the trouble of bringing you here. That is not to say, however, that I consider your life more important than my secrecy. I would recommend not attempting to escape or fight me, or you will find yourself wishing that I had killed you immediately."

Miriam has forced her breathing back to a regular pattern during his speech, has stopped struggling against the cuffs, and has even managed to relax her limbs a little. _Go limp,_ she thinks, a little delirious, _go limp and show him you're not a threat. Show him you're not going to fight._

Lecter tilts his head to the side. "I mean to remove the cuffs. Do I have your word that you won't attempt to fight?"

Miriam nods very, very slowly.

He undoes the cuffs without issue, and she reclaims her hands and legs with relief, trying to massage the pins and needles that have arisen in them. All the while, Lecter watches her, expression unchanging. When Miriam stops moving, he takes it as a cue to continue.

"All I ask," He says smoothly, "is that you cooperate with me, Agent Lass. I honestly would prefer not to kill you."

She doubts that. If he's being sincere, then his reasons for wanting her to stay alive are likely bad ones.

Lecter lifts one hand to touch her face, and Miriam reflexively flinches away. He tries again, a bit slower this time, and her pulse pounds frantically when he touches her cheek. He presses it lightly, turning her head to the side and examining where he had struck her before. Miriam fixates on a point over his shoulder as he lightly plucks a bit of her hair away from the injury.

"A little bleeding," He declares as mildly as he would if this were a proper medical examination. "But nothing serious. Look me in the eye, if you please."

Miriam does so. It's hard, though; upon meeting him in his office, she had thought that his eyes looked kind, if not a little… Empty, in some ways. That emptiness was much, much more obvious now. "Do I have a concussion?" She asks.

Lecter hums. "A mild one, I think." He rises from his seat on the bed and looks down at her. "Nothing that rest won't fix."

"Or you could just take me to a hospital to be sure." The words are out before Miriam can consider them properly.

Lecter's smile is strangely convincing. "A sense of humor is a good thing to have in moments like these."

He then proceeds to leave the room, shutting the door and locking it behind him.

Miriam stares after him for a very, very long time.

[-]

Miriam grew up watching a lot of movies.

Horrors and thrillers were a particular favorite. Her mother had once suggested that that was why she wanted to be a part of the FBI, in whatever division dealt with murderers: They were fascinating. Their reasoning, their motivation could be simple, or it could be complex- Miriam appreciated that complexity and wanted to study it.

From early on, Miriam had noticed a trend within many of the films: Whenever someone was captured, more often than not they fought and swore and tried incessantly (and many times unwisely) to escape from those who were holding them hostage.

_Stupid_, she thought when she was fourteen and watched as the victim kicked and screamed, _he's not trying to kill her yet. Just calm down, shut up, see what he wants, and wait for the opportunity to escape._ It seemed so obvious to her that if half these people just kept their cool and pretended to humor their captor that they would have much better chances at survival. They just had to stay calm.

Her mother had laughed at the idea. "Well, Miriam, let's hope if you ever get kidnapped you manage to stay calm. It isn't as easy as it looks."

God, how right she was.

All the same, Miriam remembers that thought and remembers it well. If she stays calm, bides her time and doesn't fight unless she absolutely has to, then maybe she'll live long enough to see Lecter behind bars.

Hopefully.

[-]

Of course, the first thing she thinks of is escape.

Once Miriam has snapped out of the sense of impending doom, the feeling that surely Lecter is going to come back any second with a knife, she leaps off the bed and immediately starts to examine the room to look for opportunities to escape.

There are no windows. There are two doors- the one Lecter left through, and one that leads to a small bathroom (which also doesn't have windows). There are two air vents, one in either room, but they're not large at all. The only other conceivable option of escape is hiding behind either the main door or the bathroom door and waiting for Lecter to walk through (or lure him through) so that she might attack him from behind.

That option is feasible, but risky. Very risky. And Miriam knows that it will be a very, very long time indeed before Lecter is confident enough in her cooperation to let his guard down- if he ever does. Until and if that time comes, he will be cautious, and Miriam has to make sure that she has as much as an advantage as possible before moving against him.

Then she takes stock of what she has available as weaponry. Of her personal possessions that remain she has her earrings, both of which are sharp enough to do at least some damage- especially if used on Lecter's throat. Of course, she also has herself: She's had plenty of experience fighting before, and often those sessions that took place in a learning environment deliberately pitted her against men that were larger and stronger than herself. Other than that, Lecter has been careful and ensured that very few heavy or sharp objects in the room are available to her.

Miriam goes over what she's learned about fighting in her head, mouths the instructions and mimes the movements. The drawback is, of course, that Lecter _is_ so much bigger than her, and is a seasoned murderer who is accustomed to fighting victims of all sizes and body-types.

Her greatest enemy, however, is not Lecter's size: It's his intellect. The man hasn't gotten away with as many murders as he has by being stupid or impulsive. Lecter is the sort of meticulous planner that plans not one, not two, not three, but twenty steps ahead, accounting for every scenario possible and preparing as many back-up plans as possible in the event that things go wrong. If he has left her any opportunities to overpower him or escape, they will be few in number and not even slightly obvious.

If this is destined to end in her favor, it will be because Miriam is smart enough to outthink him, not because she cut his throat with the point of her earring.

[-]

Time passes.

It's difficult to know how much. The only real measure she has is when Lecter arrives, like clockwork, to bring her food. He brings breakfast and dinner on weekdays, and lunch as well on the weekends. His general nature tells her that he is, more likely than not, almost obsessively punctual about these times.

He rarely speaks when he comes. Although Lecter is absurdly cordial given the circumstances, he seems to understand that anything more than just general pleasantness would just be ridiculous.

This is their only interaction- other than that, it is Miriam alone in a silent room.

The lack of contact is worrying. If Lecter were intending to keep her for a long time, it would make sense that he might attempt to bond with her, manipulate her into identifying or sympathizing with him. That he isn't bothering to do so gives Miriam the ugly sense that she won't be his houseguest for long.

Of course, it could be that he knows such attempts would ultimately be unsuccessful. Miriam is not his average victim; she knows his game too well to be deceived by any hollow acts of kindness or courtesy. And he did say that he would prefer not to kill her- which implies that he does not, for the moment, have plans to do so?

She forces herself to put her musings to the side. If he means to keep her for long, then she has plenty of time to unravel him.

And if he doesn't, it won't matter at all if she figures him out or not.

[-]

There are books.

Novels, mostly fiction. None of them discuss serial killers, as it so happens, and like Lecter's politeness Miriam senses that he knows better than to shove any irony in her face. She glances over the covers and the contents, and decides they are interesting enough to peruse. For the moment, though, she puts them aside and thinks about the implications of this.

There are books. And a bed. And a bathroom. And a bureau, with clothing. It is a furnished room somewhere in what she assumes is Lecter's home, probably the basement given the lack of windows (but then, depending on the size of said house, it could be somewhere in the interior). Clearly the room is properly concealed in a place where he is certain that she will not be heard or accidentally discovered- he's too smart for that.

Miriam doesn't recall meeting Lecter before that day in his office, but maybe he knew of her. Had he planned to capture and imprison her, and prepared the room as such? Had it been meant for someone else? Had it been intended for some other purpose, but suited his needs for what he meant to do with her?

She tries not to dedicate long stretches of time to figuring Lecter out, but Miriam's mind drifts back to the subject eventually, and frequently. As it stands, she still can't figure out why she's alive. Wouldn't it be easier to kill her, easier and, in fact, safer- as he himself stated- to keep his secret? It would certainly save him the trouble of all of that planning ahead to ensure that she remains unfound.

Eventually she narrows it down to two possibilities: One is that she has a purpose, either for something he specifically has in mind, or maybe just as general insurance for later. Or two, he can't justify killing her for whatever reason; they never did figure out why he chose the victims that he chose, what his reasoning was. Whatever that key thing is, perhaps Miriam either lacks it or has not displayed it yet.

That, she thinks, is something she'll have to dedicate time to figuring out if she doesn't want to end up dead.

[-]

Miriam tries to keep a routine.

She eats, then showers, then changes her clothing. Exercise, goes through the motions of what fighting moves she remembers, reading, napping, drawing in the notebook he left her (never writing, because she can't be certain that he won't read it) are interspersed throughout the day. Sleeping and waking vary in time, and often she reorders aspects of the schedule in order to cling to what little spontaneity she still has available to her.

As such, sometimes she is asleep or in the bathroom when Lecter brings lunch or dinner. When she is awake and not in the shower, she knows that he knocks before entering, but it is not a knock loud enough to rouse her from sleep or to be heard over the water of the shower.

It bothers her to a degree that Lecter is and has been nearby and unbeknownst to her. It makes Miriam nervous to know that he might see her naked if he just pushes the bathroom door open a bit, or be close to her when she is asleep and unable to defend herself if necessary.

On another hand, Miriam tentatively suspects that Lecter would not take advantage of such vulnerability without cause. The day he kills her- and that is the definite ending to this scenario, however far back into her mind she pushes it- she will be awake. He is not a man who kills people as they sleep. He gets something from seeing the life drain from an alert human being.

All the same, Miriam's eyes flip to the door repeatedly whenever she showers, and she tries to wake up before he arrives every morning. It doesn't hurt to be cautious.

[-]

Life, she presumes, is going on without her.

It's been, just maybe, a month and a half since Lecter brought her to the room. A month and a half since she last felt fresh air on her face. It is no more apparent now than it was then what he intends to do with her, and for the moment Miriam has fallen into a wary state of calm, one that will flip off like a switch the second she detects danger.

Jack and everyone else have probably come to assume the worst by now. Unless they find a body or some relatively definitive proof that she's dead- and Miriam flinches upon considering that her message on Jack's phone could be considered proof to that end- they won't close the case until some serious time has passed. They're probably still investigating but unless Lecter slips up, or maybe taunts the FBI a little too recklessly, the case will eventually grow cold.

Occasionally, the stress and panic cloud Miriam's mind so badly that she wants to scream. She wants to shriek the walls down and let everyone know that she's _right there_, only an hour and a half away from Quantico (assuming they're still in Baltimore). It makes her wonder how often the FBI walks right past the person they're looking for, unknowing and unseeing. How _maddening_ that idea is, that the answers could be so close and never be touched.

When- _if_- she gets out of this, Miriam wonders if she'll be able to handle working for the FBI knowing that.

[-]

And then, one night, some time after dinner-

"I would like to show you something."

God, Miriam doesn't like the sound of that.

"What?"

Lecter steps aside, and motions for her to- she has to take a second to make sure she's seeing this correctly- leave the room.

Now she _really_ doesn't like the sound of that.

But what choice does she have?

Miriam stands up, heart pounding, and walks towards the door- only to have Lecter put a hand up to block her.

"We are staying in the basement," He says, the picture of calmness. "All of the doors upstairs are locked. I have the keys, but there are several, and by the time you figure out which keys match which doors, I will have found you. I take it you would not like a repeat of what occurred in my office?"

Miriam shakes her head, solemn. Lecter nods, and then moves his hand.

[-]

Miriam thinks that it was the main room of the basement that she woke up in initially. Upon closer inspection, the outlines of the objects in the room (some boxes, a radiator, and various other items unworthy of too much examination) ring familiar.

She doesn't focus on them too much, though. Every muscle is tense, every alarm-bell screaming in her head as she thinks _God, God, is he going to kill me? Is it time to fight?_ She can't misstep. To fight when her life is not actually in danger will sign her death warrant for certain; but to take too much of a chance and risk being put into a situation where she will be unable to fight when she has to is unwelcome as well.

Lecter leads her to another door on the opposite side of the basement. This one is not concealed as the door to her room is, not hidden away to be concealed from prying eyes that might see the wrong thing. He puts his hand on the knob, twists it, pulls the door open wide and then steps back so that Miriam can enter the room first.

And she's about to, just as the unmistakable, coppery scent of blood hits her.

Miriam reflexively starts to back away, and the pounding of her heart in her ears reaches a fever pitch when Lecter grabs her wrist and gives a little tug, trying to move her back towards the door-

"_No_."

"Agent, Agent," His voice is clearly meant to be soothing, but he must be insane to think that she's going to buy that. "You needn't worry. It is not your time. I merely wish to show you something."

"Show me what?" Miriam demands, not caring that her voice is hard and cold.

Lecter's eyes are chillingly blank. "What you came for, of course." Maybe he does it as a gesture of good faith, but he releases her wrist and then gestures back to the door. It's hollow, of course: If he didn't know for certain that he could get Miriam through the door, he wouldn't have brought her.

It takes a second, but Miriam forces herself back into composure. _Calm. Calm. Stay calm. Don't make the mistake of panicking. Panic gets you killed. Look at everything. Look for any and every opportunity. _

"Why don't you go first?"

Lecter's smile has an edge of amusement to it. "Because I was not, as they say, born yesterday, Agent Lass."

"You will excuse me for being nervous at the idea of you being behind me, Doctor. We both remember how that ended last time."

"You had best keep your hand at the level of your eyes then, Agent Lass." Miriam knows that's a reference to something, but can't recall what at the moment.

All the same, she brings her hand up to cup her neck so that she can pry Lecter's hands away if he tries to choke her again. It's a toss-up over whether or not he'll actually do it: That he's giving her a chance to prepare herself indicates he won't, but he could simply be very confident in his ability to overpower her.

With one, final look from the corner of her eyes at Lecter, Miriam steps into the room.

Into a nightmare.

[-]

The blood is not everywhere, but there is a lot of it.

It's all been drained off into jars that have yet to be capped. The source is from the corpse of a woman a bit older than Miriam, eyes open, glassy, staring at the ceiling. She is on a metal table that would not look out of place in a morgue. There is a table lined with surgical equipment to the side; and on the wall that parallels the foot of the table, there are two large, shiny refrigerators.

Lecter's workshop.

The realization that she is looking at where he likely kills most of his victims allows Miriam to, very briefly, forget that Lecter is actually there with her. He shuts the door behind them and accidentally bumps Miriam's shoulder as he passes her, and it shakes her out of the daze somewhat.

"Who is that?" She asks, voice slightly raspy. Her throat and lungs don't seem to be working properly.

"A Baltimore socialite with a wagging tongue," Lecter sighs in a tone that Miriam might peg as regret from anyone else. But then, Lecter seems to have developed his own brand of emotions that dimly parallel those of other human beings. "Beautiful, but utterly disrespectful to the staff at the Charleston. I do detest customers who treat perfectly professional staff poorly."

During this spiel, Miriam's eyes have been fixed on the socialite's corpse. Only when Lecter stops speaking does she manage to look away and at him, to see that he has adorned himself in a long, plastic coat that runs from neck to ankles. There are plastic coverings on his shoes as well, and now he's putting on gloves.

"You needn't worry about standing back," Lecter says. "I am the one who must be cautious. One simple mistake can be my undoing, you understand, and so I strive to avoid making them when possible."

_So you don't think holding an FBI agent in your basement is a mistake?_ Miriam thinks, bewildered.

What follows over the next hour or so is ghastly by most standards.

In short, Lecter shows her the art of harvesting organs.

"It is important to determine ahead of time which organs you want," He says as he removes the woman's heart and sets it on a tray to his right. "So that you may determine how best to kill. Obviously a knife is a poor choice if one wants to preserve the stomach and other organs in that area. Cutting the throat is perhaps the easiest in that regard, but can be extraordinarily messy."

He does it with all the emotion of a how-to demonstration, which is basically what this is. Miriam stays rooted to one spot the entire time, watching in mute, contained horror as he also removes the victim's lungs, liver and kidneys. Once he has finished getting what he wants, Lecter seals the organs in plastic bags and packs them neatly into the empty refrigerator

Then he leads her back to her room, with no explanation as to why he wanted her to witness any of it.

Miriam is on the edge of dizziness with the force of her nausea. She swallows repeatedly, trying not to vomit or pass out as images cycle through her mind. She's seen dead bodies before, seen them in the morgue as the medical examiners prodded at them- but watching a serial killer work with one in the basement of his home adds a layer to it that is much more horrifying and disgusting than the clinical, professional atmosphere of an examination room.

Or maybe it's because she knows that either of them are one decision away from Miriam being on the table next.

[-]

It's later, in bed, when something clicks.

The refrigerator was completely empty when Lecter put the organs in.

He's killed several people.

Where are the other organs?

_Organs._

_Freezer-bags._

_Refrigerator. _

_No organs._

_Not in the refrigerator._

_He's not keeping them. _

_But he's probably not throwing them away._

_He's-_

It hits her all at once, without so much as an ounce of doubt, and Miriam's eyes go impossibly wide in the darkness.

She bolts into the bathroom and is loudly, violently sick.

[-]

The next morning, she is still in the bathroom when he leaves breakfast. It's bacon, eggs and toast- oddly enough, he never underfeeds her. Aside from the small matters of imprisoning her against her will, forcing her to watch the butchery of a corpse, and feeding her the flesh of other human beings for meals, Lecter does not mistreat her in any way.

Miriam forces herself to swallow the toast and eggs, forces her stomach not to send them back up with the new knowledge of what he's been feeding her all this time. Lecter returns around noon with lunch. He tips his head to the side when he sees her plate.

"You didn't eat your bacon."

The son of a bitch actually has the gall to look surprised- or what passes as surprise for him.

Miriam's eyes are hollow, and she can't keep the sardonic edge from her voice as she says, "I'm going vegetarian."

Lecter stares at her for a moment, and then smiles.

_Fuck,_ but she hates that smile.

"I'm sure that I can accommodate."

[-]

He does.

He never brings her meat again, and Miriam can't tell if he's genuinely honoring her wishes or if he's found a way to make a human liver look and taste like broccoli.

[-]

"Why am I still alive?"

Lecter pauses, his back to her. He's left the dinner tray on her bed and has already turned to leave as she asks. At first, it's just his head that turns back to look- just a sliver of dark eyes over his shoulder, and Miriam can't tell if he's amused, irritated, or if he feels nothing at all about the question. It could be any, it could be all, and she already knows that she's probably never going to see any true emotions from him.

Except maybe in that moment when he kills her.

Lecter turns back, folds his hands in front of him. He contemplates his answer, eyes locked with hers, and Miriam tries very hard not to look away in spite of how unnerving that gaze is. "That is a many-layered question, Agent Lass."

"You are a complex man, after all." Though her tone is ironic, she is completely serious.

Lecter strolls back to the bed, sits down beside her as he did the day he brought her to the room.

"I have many reasons for keeping you here, Agent Lass. What do you suppose they are?"

_You're a sick, twisted, serial killer who's suddenly developed a taste for exhibitionism?_

"I have my theories. None are fully developed yet."

"Then at least give me a hint."

He's enjoying this. His eyes are a little less empty now, and Miriam is leerier than before due to the implications of it.

"Power," She suggests carefully. If she offends him as that socialite did, her time is up. "You enjoy knowing that you have an FBI agent in your basement. It's… Entertaining, maybe, to see my colleagues panicking over my disappearance. You're toying with one of the higher authorities in the land and winning." That he is winning is a bitter realization, and her stomach twists unpleasantly.

Lecter neither confirms nor denies it. He simply says, "You will have plenty of time to develop you theories, Agent Lass. I do look forward to speaking with you more often as time goes on."

He gets up and leaves.

But those words, whether he meant them to or not, are foreboding.


End file.
